New Media Player Hardware

[Ben_in_COSpring]

Popcorn Hour and MVIX both have new offerings on the horizon:


Mvix Ultio

Popcorn Hour C-200

The PCH seems to be more feature-rich, whereas the MVIX is about half the price. I definitely like the hot-swappable SATA bay on the PCH, and am interested to see how they will implement the Blu-Ray player functionality that they advertise. MVIX is releasing all the source code, including their firmware code, which should open up a lot of possibilities as far as mods go.


My wishlist for the next generation of these devices is pretty simple:
1) Slicker UI (a la XBMC), with better music browsing, album art, and a playlist capability. And what I wouldn't give for a spin dial on the remote like the iPod has, or something similar. I absolutely despise having to PgDn through 10 albums/artists at a time.
2) Faster boot time (the MVIX is not bad, but PCH takes damn near 45 seconds to boot up).

 

[Nemo128]

We need real new hardware. Every NMT-type device on the market uses the same Sigma Designs chipset.

Realtek is coming out with one that I haven't seen in any devices yet, but it should shake up the NMT market quite a bit.

 

[joebob]

I wonder how the PCH compares to the Squeezebox, in terms of audio quality. It seems that you would get many more features, including video, for the same price with the PCH unit, assuming the SQ was comparable. Also, it looks like there are a number of upgrade and storage options on this unit, interesting.

 

[Nemo128]

I believe the Squeezebox is supposed to have audiophile-class audio processing, but since you'd be running compressed audio anyway, I dunno what difference it makes. Even if using lossless, they're probably comparable honestly.

 

[joebob]

I believe the Squeezebox is supposed to have audiophile-class audio processing, but since you'd be running compressed audio anyway, I dunno what difference it makes. Even if using lossless, they're probably comparable honestly.

It supports flac so I would use that. Hopefully some reviews will come out soon for this thing.

 

[HDPCsound]

The thing i love, is that the RF remote control technology, is functional over greater distances so you don't need to be right in front of the device to control programming.

 

[Ben_in_COSpring]

Don't Believe the Hype - It's a Hunk of Junk

As a follow-up to my original post, I bought the C-200 several months ago. I had planned on doing a review, and have been waiting for a decent FW build to do so with, but that doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon. In my experience thus far this thing is borderline non-functional for anything except playing simple avi files. Forget about consistently playing .ts/.m2ts files, anything with hd audio tracks, PGS tracks, DVD .iso files, .flac's, mp3's (yes, even those don't work), etc. Don't believe the spec sheet on their web site, most of it is flat-out lies.

If you want a $300 paperweight that looks neat on your shelf and does nothing useful, then this might be just the thing for you. Otherwise don't waste your money.

I wish I had something more positive to say about it, but unfortunately I appear to have bought in to the hype and now am reduced to warning others to not do the same. ARgghh.